


When you wake up and wonder where your home is

by EtoileGarden



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Arguments, Canonical Suicide Attempt, Communication, Conversation, Friendship, Gansey family, Gansey loves his friends so much, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Snippets, all characters will arrive in due time, canon level child abuse, even when they disappoint him, eventual background Pynch, eventual bluesey, gansey wants all his friends to love him and know how loveable they are, i stay very much on the edges of the suicide attempt and the abuse, not explicit, oh hello childhood trauma, young Gansey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-09-29 19:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17209586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtoileGarden/pseuds/EtoileGarden
Summary: Otherwise titled, 'arden has emotions about young gansey and needed to vent'





	1. Chapter 1

After the debacle of Richard Campbell Gansey III a little bit dying during hide and seek, his parents withdrew from the public gaze. Not for too long. Long enough that they came off as appropriately worried and doting. Which wasn't to say that they weren't worried, or that they didn't dote on Gansey, but. But he had always been very aware their preference here was that he hurried up his feeling better process so he could put on a sensible public face to prove to all their acquaintances and allies that the Ganseys were perfectly normal, thank you very much. All quirks of character had to be charming or intellectual after all. 

 

So. His parents made sure he got top notch medical attention, and then, after the first three screaming nightmares, top notch therapy sessions, and in between the sessions they reminded him that he was oh so very privileged and it was a waste of privilege if he was willing to give up on being a stable person so easily when so many people had it much worse, and also that the Ganseys were very strong minded and that he just needed to learn to control himself.

 

It was a simple decision, therefore, to use all good training in diplomacy (learned from dinner party after dinner party after charity event) to convince his therapist that he was super duper fine and happy and unaffected from the event. Honestly, it was the past and it could stay in the past. His therapist was a bit hard to convince, but his parents took the line easily. Proudly even. Not too proud, of course, because it wasn't something they could really bring out as a brag to most people. It had to be careful bundled up in a; ‘oh yes, Dicky if so very mature, you know he handled that very scary event with the bees so calmly.’ 

 

They duly trotted him out at a party to prove he was still sound of mind, he carefully tried out his normal boy persona, and he was excused from coming to too many events for a full year so as not to refresh the memory of the event in anyone's mind too often. 

 

The nightmares didn't stop, which was very frustrating because he was so good at putting the mask of ok on, but it always fell off when he slept and that was not fair because everyone else got the benefit of Gansey being ok but not him. 

 

He had always disliked how far apart the bedrooms in their house was until then. He had hated not being able to hear when his parents went to bed, of feeling alone in his corner of the house. The first few nightmares he'd had he had had to walk across the house to find his parents because they hadn't even heard him. He was thankful now that they couldn't hear. That when he fumbled his mask it was always while he was alone where it was safe. 

 

It took a full year after the event for his mask to be discovered. 

 

-

 

He had just gotten to the part of his dream where the hornets’ little feet were poking into the gap between his eyelids, when Helen shook him awake. 

 

Her hair was tied back for bed, but she was wearing a jumper over her pajamas, like she knew she was going to be out of bed for longer than a toilet trip. She was bent over him and his bed, like a shadow, her hand tight on his shoulder. 

 

“Dick,” she said firmly, because all the Ganseys had very firm voices when they wanted to, “you should have said something.” 

 

It took him a few long moments of just blinking up through his tear clumpy eyelashes at her to parse her words as something other then just noises. He was not used to having to perform as a human right after he woke up from the hornets. When he didn’t reply quickly enough, she gave his shoulder another little impatient shake and released him before standing up properly and speaking again. 

 

“I know you’re trying to think of something plausible, but there’s no point. You’re still having those nightmares about the bees. I thought so.” 

 

He just looked at her, because he hadn’t been trying to think of anything to say, but now he was because he wanted to be able to protest this without sounding petulant. She continued talking. 

 

“It’s ok, Dicky,” she said, dropping her voice quickly from Firm Gansey to Comfort Gansey. She patted his shoulder where she’d shaken him just before. “I knew you were keeping a secret but you’re not in trouble, you know. It’s just silly you’d hide this when you could have told us and we could have helped you already.” 

 

“I know it’s silly,” he said, because he did know it was silly. 

 

“Good,” she said, “we’ll talk to the parents about it at breakfast then.” 

 

“Ok,” he said, because, well, he was barely eleven and she was close enough to being an adult that he felt obliged to agree with whatever she said. 

 

“Right,” she said, patted him again, “go back to sleep then.” 

 

“Ok,” he said. 

 

-

 

He felt, at breakfast, that this had really been quite a premeditated affair because both his parents were at the dining table when he came in with his cereal, and Helen was standing to the side by the window pretending to look busy with a book. 

 

“Ah,” his mother said kindly as he sat down, “Dicky, darling. How did you sleep?” 

 

He looked from his mother, to his father, to his sister - who nodded at him. 

 

“Um,” he said, “I had another nightmare.” 

 

“Ah,” his mother repeated, “oh dear.” 

 

“Oh dear,” his father echoed.” 

 

“The same nightmare?” Helen called from the window. 

 

He nodded. 

 

“That therapist was such a hack,” his mother said grimly to her black coffee. “Imagine telling us Dicky was all cured while he obviously wasn’t.” 

 

“We should call the board,” His father suggested. He had a newspaper spread out over his patch of the table, and he turned a page now. 

 

“Make sure they know to say it was from anonymous sources, of course,” his mother said, then, “Dicky, dear. Your father and I have been thinking about how to help you.” 

 

“Thank you,” he said, because that felt like maybe the right thing to say. 

 

His mother smiled at him encouragingly, and then nudged her husband, who turned another page of the paper and spoke without looking up. 

 

“Your grandfather,” his father said firmly, “was a strong believer in the restorative and strengthening properties of boarding school. Nothing better to build a strong man than a strong school, he always said.” 

 

“Yes,” he said, “he and I talked about it at Christmas. He showed me photos.” 

 

“Yes,” his father said, “so we’ve picked out a nice one for you.” 

 

“But,” Gansey said, “I already have a school.” 

 

The Gansey children went to the private school in town because it was posh, but not too posh that it made the Ganseys unapproachable from people lesser than them. His mother said it was a good connection to the people. 

 

“Well,” his mother said now, “if it isn’t giving you the support you need, then I don’t think it’s worth it, is it dear?” 

 

“I’ve pulled a few strings,” his father added, “you get to start next week. Exciting, isn’t it?” 

 

He did not think it was exciting. “Yes,” he said, “thank you.” 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year! 2019 will still be full of my unedited fics yw.

 

The biggest difference, he thought, barely a week into boarding school, was that he was sharing a room. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He had, until recently, bemoaned being so far away from other people when he slept. He could see many positives of sharing a room, especially for people of his age and circumstance. It built more of a relationship with your classmates if you had to socialise with them while they were half awake on a daily basis. It often helped with homesickness, he had heard, not feeling so alone in your new school. If a bee got into the room and stung him, he wouldn’t be alone while he died. 

 

However. The nightmares were not something he enjoyed anyone being an audience to - not even (especially) himself. It wasn’t like they were bunking right on top of each other - they all had a nice little perimeter around their beds, but he was still sleeping within a few metres of three other boys his age who had ears as well as mouths for asking questions. 

 

The first time he had a nightmare, the third night after arriving, he woke up to deathly silence in the room - silent except for his heavy breaths. He had thought that no one had woken up, until a voice to his left asked if he was going to throw up. 

 

The second time, the very next night, he woke up to a pillow being thrown at him. He opened his eyes to grumbling from the boy - Cameron - in the bed to his right as he climbed out of bed to retrieve his thrown pillow. Someone else in the dark (he thought it was Alexander) suggested he call his mommy. 

 

The third time, the night in question really, Cameron was already retrieving his pillow when he woke up, and Cameron paused to suggest maybe they could talk to the dean about a single room. 

 

He did not want a single room. He didn’t go back to sleep that night, opting instead to lie awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to work the pros and cons into a proper list. He wasn’t sure who each list was for. If he wanted to convince Cameron and the other boys that him staying in here with them was best, or if he was trying to convince himself that it wasn’t. 

 

Because he hadn’t slept, he was the first of his room to get up and dressed, which gave him ample time to seek out the dean of his own accord. 

 

“Oh,” the dean said, answering his suite door still in a dressing gown. “Richard Gansey, isn’t it?” 

 

“The third,” he answered in some sort of ingrained tic, “yes sir.” 

 

“It’s quite early,” the dean remarked. 

 

“Yes sir,” he replied. 

 

“Oh well, then,” the dean sighed, opened his door further, come on then, tell me your woes, Mr Richard Gansey  _ the third _ .” 

 

The dean didn’t say ‘the third’ in a mean way, just in a ‘way’. 

 

He followed the dean in, sat in a hard wooden chair at a small table. 

 

“Cameron and Alexander think I shouldn’t be rooming with them,” he started. 

 

“Oh indeed,” the dean said. “And what does Rupert think? And you?” 

 

“I don’t know what Rupert thinks,” he admitted, “Rupert doesn’t talk much.” 

 

“And you?” the dean repeated. 

 

“I have insomnia,” he replied, because he had been reading about it on his phone while he hadn’t slept all night, “it keeps me awake and fidgety and it irritates the others. I think - it’s not fair on them to have me as a room mate, sir.” 

 

“Ah,” the dean said. He looked quite tired. “Well. What do you suggest then?” 

 

“I was hoping you could help me with that,” he admitted, “the only solutions I’ve thought of so far is to find me a heavy sleeper roomate, or simply put me in a room by myself.” 

 

“Mr Gansey - uh - the third,” the dean said, “I am… overly… aware of the sway your family and their money has. I feel the need to tell you right here and now that we don’t take bribes from our students for special treatment.” 

 

“Well, I -” he started, and the dean interrupted. 

 

“However,” he said, somewhat heavily, “our revered headmaster has requested that anything concerning you be brought to him immediately, so I will take your issue to him.” 

 

“Oh,” he said. 

 

“Indeed,” the dean said, “alright. Off with you now.” 

 

-

 

“Your father,” the headmaster said down to Gansey, “was a very good friend of my son - before his death - and now he is very much like a son to me.” 

 

“My father mentions you often,” he lied through his teeth. 

 

“Well good,” the headmaster chuckled. “Now. Nigel has filled me in with your request for a single room. Quite an unusual request coming from someone so young and so new to this school.” 

 

“I am aware it is an unusual request. I apologise if I come off as arrogant for asking.” 

 

“Not at all,” the headmaster said, waved his hand in a gesture of complete dismissal. “I am willing to cut you a deal.” 

 

“Please do tell.” 

 

“You speak just like your father - quite amusing coming from you. Well. I will have you moved into your single room. You must proceed to get nothing lower than an A for the entire first term. If you do so, you may keep your single room, and your father will double his generous donation. If you don’t, you will have to deal with making your roommates grumpy.” 

 

-

 

He got his own room. He studied until his vague suspicion that he needed glasses became a real piece of knowledge. He got A’s and nothing but. He lay awake in bed most nights considering how he was still alive and how he could still remember the voice in his head he had thought - maybe - was a hallucination at first. He spent his breaks researching the name Glendower until things made a little bit of sense. 

 

-

 

His parents visited during the first break. 

 

“Dicky,” his mother called, announcing their arrival, and his unfortunate name, “you’re taller!” 

 

“They feed you well here,” his father remarked, just behind his mother, “good solid food.” 

 

“We’re very proud of your marks,” his mother told him, smoothed his hair and then his forehead, as if in preparation for what she knew his father would say next. 

 

“Less proud of how secluded you’ve made yourself here,” his father said, “putting yourself away in a room by yourself and paying no mind to your classmates out of class. Boarding school is a chance for you to strengthen connections, grow life long friendships.” 

 

“We’re glad you’re studying,” his mother said, “but if we wanted you to just be book smart, we would have kept you at home. Us Gansey’s are charismatic! If you have a court of friends, you rule the world, Dicky. A court of only books and you simply rule the page.” 

 

“Where’s Helen?” he asked. 

 

“Oh,” his father said, “In Malaysia for an internship. Something you can get if you make friends, Richard.” 

 

“I will,” he said, “I’m sorry. I got caught up in it.”


	3. Chapter 3

By his second year of boarding school, he was almost impressed with himself. Only almost because he was, after all, simply living up to the Gansey name and as a Gansey that oughtn’t to be a surprise. He maintained his good grades, and therefore maintained his single room. At the same time he followed his parents’ directions and joined countless clubs and sports teams and grew ‘friendships’ from them like blossoms from pre-potted flowers. He already knew he was good at feigning interest in people, in smiling with a mouthful of charisma, but he had never really been interested in pretending at all with people his age, so it had been an added challenge. One he took very seriously, because after all, what better way to prove to his parents, his sister, himself, that he was truly ok then being surrounded by a group of friends at all times. 

 

At all times, that was, except in his room in the evening, late into the night, early morning. At those times he lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling, or the window, or the wall, or at the square of light of his phone as he scrolled through article after article about Welsh history. He ordered books online at three am, read them into the mornings when they arrived. Rolled words around in his mouth - ones with too many L’s and D’s, watched youtube tutorials on pronunciation, practiced along. He still had nightmares, but they weren’t the only thing that kept him from sleeping now. Instead, the reason he stayed awake so late every night - unable to find sleep - was due to the itch under his skin, in his bones, dripping through his marrow. The itch to understand why. Why he was still here. What was the reason. Why would Glendower have saved  _ him _ . For he truly believed it was Glendower now. He had never heard of such a person before, knew nothing about sleeping kings and the power they granted through wishes and waking and ley lines. Now he knew so much that not talking about it gave him headaches and stomach aches and heart aches which he kept carefully to himself during the night, and only handed over to the school nurse occasionally in the mornings. 

 

It only really culminates the term break after his thirteenth birthday, though. His classmates and teammates and friends had thrown him a party at the school, which had been nice. Now he was home, his parents were throwing him a real Gansey party for him, inviting all his teachers, and all the parents of the children who went to Gansey’s school, and all the local politicians - and some non-local - and family friends, and the Gansey parents’ friends, and Helen’s friends. 

 

He spends a large chunk of the party being handed around various adults who he only vaguely knows answering questions about his education and his opinions of politics and what sports he played, and oh, you’re the captain? How wonderful, your parents must be proud. So proud. Clever, good looking, and athletic to boot. Not to mention charming of course! Do you manage to fit any hobbies in alongside this, young man? 

 

Mostly he insisted that the sports were his hobbies, occasionally he revealed he had taken a summer course the year previous on model crafting and enjoyed to recreate houses, but of course that was just something for his hands to do when he was idle. As the party drew longer, he began adding in his interest in Welsh history, in Welsh kings. In particular, of course, in Glendower. He never talked about how he believed in the magic of it - that would be a step too far obviously - but he knew a lot of interesting things about Glendower and his rule now. 

 

Eventually the party ended, and he was released to his bed where he was exhausted enough to actually sleep and dream about nothing. When he woke and made his way downstairs to his family in the dining room, however, his father was spreading toast in that particular Gansey way which meant there was something to say.  

 

“I had no idea you were so well versed on Welsh history,” Helen said, beginning the conversation with a smile and a swig of black coffee, “you really made quite a stir with how excited you were about it all.” 

 

“Oh,” he says, pours himself some apricot and fennel juice, “yes. I am quite… intrigued about it all. It’s very interesting. The history.” 

 

“Indeed,” his mother says, carefully peeling pith off of a single segment of orange, “Mr Canfellow asked me if we had any Welsh blood in us.” 

 

He laughed a little. There was no reason not to. It wasn’t as if it was an insult. 

 

“It’s nice,” his father said, “that you have a hobby. A good brain from remembering facts and dates and such, but. Don’t you think that Welsh history is maybe a little irrelevant? What will you do with it?” 

 

He had thought, that maybe, he would track down the meaning of his life with it, but he didn’t think that was a wise thing to say at the breakfast table. He shrugged. 

 

“I suppose,” he said, “I just find it interesting.” 

 

“Yes,” his father said, “I find cars interesting, and I spend a lot of time and money on that particular hobby, but, it’s something other people relate to. I make good friends through it, good connections. Money even. We’ve heard you’ve been spending a lot of money on a lot of books recently.” 

 

His mother was nodding. He kept his gaze steady as he reached for a bread roll and replied. “I think I could do something with the knowledge I’m learning through this hobby. I’ve got in touch with some academics, I could study history.” 

 

“Oh dear,” Helen mumbled. 

 

“You could study history,” his mother said, “is that what you want? You want to become a history professor?” 

 

“Not too bad,” his father said, “some of our close friends are well known professors. Or course, mostly in psychology, or medicine, but some of them in things such as… literature or history.” 

 

“Yes,” his mother said, then hid a smile behind her hand and nudged her husband, “oh, but think of Thompson.” 

 

His father laughed. 

 

“I don’t know what I want to do yet,” he interrupted his parents laughter carefully, “I just enjoy it.” 

 

“Be that as it may,” his father said, exchanging looks with his wife in a very rehearsed looking way, “we noticed you didn’t even spend any time with your friends during your party last night. It was almost as if you only wanted to try to find a listening ear for your Welsh antics. We thought you were getting better at making friends and connections.” 

 

He had thought that his parents wanted him to spend his time last night with the adults. Making connections with possible future employers, teachers, mentors, giving his parents a good name. He frowned. 

 

“Being obsessed with something so obscure will gain you no friends or respect among your peers,” his mother said, “Dicky, darling, we are only saying this because we have you best interest in mind.”

 

“Maybe you should take up archery,” Helen suggested, “or get more into cars, like dad. Boys your age like to talk cars, right?” 

 

“Right,” he muttered. 

 

“Speak up,” his father said, reaching for his newspaper, crisis now averted, “Gansey’s don’t mumble.” 

 

-

 

Maybe it was overkill. It probably was. But. It had hurt. Hurt all the way to the quick. Despite the casual tone at the table, despite the endearments from his mother, the pat on his back from his father, he knew they were very serious. If he wanted to keep looking into Glendower, studying Glendower, discovering why he was here, living, breathing, crying, he would have to do it with so much more secrecy than he felt capable of while holding up his facade of being perfectly happy and well adjusted at school and home. 

 

His parents, though they did keep most of their wealth in banks, were rather large advocates of keeping a stash of cash at hand at all times. For emergencies, they said, for takeaways, Helen suggested, for the needy, his mother adjusted, for going on the run, his father had joked. 

 

He did, of course, have his own credit card and bank account full of figures, but he figured the cash would be very useful for going on the run. It was all too easy. His parents’ had given him the self sufficiency years ago by telling him to book his own flights and trips to and from school. It was good practice, they said. It was good practice. It took him barely anytime at all to book his flights out of the country. He packed his bag while he waited for his ordered taxi to arrive. He didn’t need much. Didn’t want much. A few changes of clothes - he could always buy more if necessary - his journal he had begun to keep about important Glendower facts, his passport, his wallet with all the household cash stash, his phone charger and phone. His spare glasses. One bag. 

 

It had cost a little more to book his flights so close to their departure, but, well, it wasn’t the extra expense his parents would be mad about. 

 

-

  
He was thirteen. He was thirteen and running away from home. Or from his family. He hadn’t  _ lived _ there for the last couple of years, it didn’t quite feel like home anymore. 


	4. Chapter 4

It took two days for his parents to text him. Not call. Text. 

 

Are you at a friends? They ask. 

 

No, he replied, I’m in Wales. 

 

They called him then. 

 

“What,” his father said when the phone connected them, “the bloody hell are you doing in Wales?” 

 

It was interesting to hear his father curse at him. He usually kept the ‘bloody hells’ to cricket and politics and people treating their cars badly. 

 

“Making my interest in Welsh history worthwhile,” he said, voice steady because he was a Gansey, fingers worrying at his lips because he was afraid. 

 

His father didn’t reply. There was a bit of a scuffling noise, and then his mother spoke. 

 

“Explain yourself,” she said. 

 

“I thought it all out on the plane,” he said, “I’ll finish the school year via correspondence. They do remarkable things over the internet, you know. Then it’s the summer holidays. I’ve been reading about Glendower for the last few years, and there are so many questions that haven’t been answered about his life - and about that period of time actually - that I think I can piece together. You have always told me that there’s no point sitting about when you have something you’re passionate about seeing done. I’m not going to sit about. Tell everyone I’m studying abroad, that I wanted to experience more culture, that I’m expanding my studies.” 

 

It had been a lot to say, and he hadn’t breathed quite enough while saying it, so he covered the microphone with his hand and heaved his breaths in and out far too quickly. His lip felt like it might be bleeding a little bit. 

 

There was silence on the other end of the phone. 

 

“So you mean to say,” Helen said crisply, “that you’ve run away from home and you hadn’t even thought of a plan until you were on the plane? Y’know, when I ran away from home, I left a nice little schedule outlining my terms and conditions, you need to be a bit more thoughtful.” 

 

He thinks Helen thinks she is being funny and breaking the tension. His stomach hurts and hurts.

 

“My terms and conditions,” he said, removing his hand from his mouth so he doesn’t mumble into the phone, “is that you give me permission to do this. Give me permission and this won’t turn into a scandal.” 

 

There are deep intakes of breath through the phone, and he resumes picking at his lips. 

 

“I see,” his father said. “I am disappointed, Dick.” 

 

“I know.” 

 

“What about your friends, Dicky?” His mother asked, “Did you say goodbye to them all at your party? Won’t you miss them?” 

 

“I’ll email them.” 

 

“I hope you realise,” his father said, “that I used up a lot of good will to get you into that school on such short notice. I won’t be getting that back.” 

 

“I know.” 

 

“If we ask you to come home,” his mother asked, “would you?” 

 

“No.” 

 

Silence. 

 

“We could call the police,” Helen suggested. 

 

“The drama,” his mother objected. 

 

“We know where he is,” his father said, “it’s not as if he’s missing.” 

 

“How long will you be gone for?” His mother asked. 

 

“I’m not sure.” 

 

-

 

The rest of the phone call wasn’t much really. It was him agreeing to call. It was them agreeing to deal with the school on this end and him agreeing to sort out his schooling on his end. It was Helen making snide comments. It was a call ended with stiff goodbyes. It was his mouth bleeding as he tore away a strip of his lip between his teeth and nails as he tried to keep the rest of his composure. He had thought - hoped maybe - that they would fight it more. Maybe he wanted them to send the police after him. Or to come after him themselves. They could track him through his credit card. Through his flights. But they hadn’t. They had let him go. He ought to be pleased. 

 

-

 

He spent three months in Wales before a fragment of information lead him elsewhere. He spent barely a week in that elsewhere. He flitted from place to place, acquiring new clothing, new tastes in food, extra tech, sunburns. Shedding his bag as it fell to pieces through constant packing and unpacking, losing his phone and buying a new one in Mexico, forgetting some of the reasons he was running because he was too busy finding reasons to keep moving. The nightmares didn’t stop. In fact. They got worse. Before, he had been in a box, a carefully manicured and kept box with rules and regiments and the only time all the disaster and chaos that was his head was allowed to be let loose was in the night when he was alone. But here - with no constant supervision, with no walls around him, with no end goal in sight he felt untethered. His chaos escaped unallowed and tore him up into little pieces at ridiculous things.

 

A bug landed on his arm in Germany. Not a bee, or a wasp, or a hornet. A moth, he though, but. His brain shredded out an alarm and his body froze and his reason fled and he shook and cried and clawed at the dirt beneath him and then at his own skin because he could  _ feel the hornets feet _ , scratching him, worming beneath the epidermis into his bloodstream and he was nothing but panic and fear. When it passed, he had been exhausted, and embarrassed, and alone, thank God. 

 

The next time it happened, he hadn’t been alone. He was going to go on a guided hike. Him and a small group of tourists. The guide had been handing around bug repellent, citing the horrible itchy bites people got from the mosquitoes, and saying it helped to keep away the spiders and the gnats and the other creepy crawlies.

 

He had dropped to the ground like a sack of flour before he had even registered what the tour guide had been saying. He had shook like he was trying to shake off a swarm. He had scratched divots into his face. The tour guide had crouched beside him and tried to calm him, and a lady had panicked and called an ambulance, and his wrists were checked for medical bracelets warning of an allergy or a disability. 

 

“I’m so sorry,” he said when it was over and he was still sitting, all dirty, on the ground. “I didn’t mean to cause a scene.” 

 

“I think you ought to go home, son,” the tour guide had said, very kindly. 

 

The EMT checking his pulse nodded her head. “We can call your parents for you, if you like?” 

 

“I’m alright, thank you.” He said, “It was a panic attack. I am sorry for worrying everyone.” 

 

“Still,” the EMT had said. 

 

“I’ll go home,” he had promised. 

 

The thing was. He didn’t exactly have a home to go to. He hadn’t found it yet. It felt like he was looking for Glendower in name only - in reality he was looking for something that was home. An answer. An answer would be his home. So. Yes. He hadn’t been lying to the EMT. This extended trip was hopefully going to take him home. 

 

-

 

He learned in England that his panic attacks weren’t just bee related. Which was irritating and uncomfortable. He found a traveling companion - one who believed in the unknown and the unseen and the magical and in  _ him _ . Roger Malory. He and Malory dowsed together, and studied together, and discovered his absolute terror of talking about death together. 

 

He hadn’t thought he would be picky about talking about death. He was, after all, acquainted with it. It was just a fact of life. Theoretically he was all sorts of okay about it. In practice though, it put him down on the ground in tears and panic and frantic clawing, and ended with him in shame and dirtied, and Roger giving him such a look. 

 

The thing about having a constant companion here, was that they spent a lot of time together, and so Malory got to see these panic attacks far too often, and not only that, heard some of his nightmares. He complained about the nightmares, and insisted that ‘you go and find yourself somewhere else to scream the roof down. I need my sleep, young man.’ 

 

This was fine. He was used to this. The being alone thing. It became him, rather. 

 

Maybe it was because he was on a path that felt closer than ever, maybe it was because of the humidity in the air, maybe it was just bad luck, but his nightmares grew more constant in England. He felt the panic under his skin every day, prodding at him. Insisting he look more, look harder, that he was losing, losing, losing. 

 

He had been keeping reasonably constant contact with his parents this whole time. He would try and let them know every time he was in a new country. They had Roger’s phone number right now as well. He talked to Helen most often though, telling her about his finds, about how he had been discovering artifacts all over the world and making contacts and becoming known and respected and  _ learning _ . She reported all of this to their parents in an effort to dissuade their disapproval. To his parents he mostly talked about his online school reports, and his health, and asked about their health and their work. 

 

-

 

Nothing really triggered it. Nothing he could pin down anyway. He just felt. Restless. Finished. Alone. He liked Roger, a lot, he was a good sport, and he at least tried to understand him, and he was so interested in everything. But. He was having nightmares every night and his skin ached and he had seen bees in every field trip they had done in the last two weeks. 

 

He left without saying goodbye, because that was what he did now. If you said goodbye people could ask you to stay. They could ask why. He didn’t want to have to pause in his decisions. So he left, running away again, his parents would probably say. They had liked him being in England with Malory, because, they might have thought that Malory was a crazy old coot, but he was respected and he was old and he was rich so that made him acceptable. He didn’t want to tell them he had left - and so rudely too - like he had left them and like he had left his school. 

 

He left his phone - accidentally (ish) - in the rooms he had been staying in. He bought a new phone at his next stop, in the airport right after he landed. He knew his parents’, and Helen’s numbers of by heart. He even knew Malory’s number. He put them all in his phone, but didn’t do his usual task of sending a text to everyone to let them know his new number. He already felt untethered and removed and maybe it was better that way. He just wanted to get to look and search without having to feel responsible for people feeling responsible for him. He just wanted to escape the feeling in his skin that he was lost. He just wanted to find an answer that would let him go home. 


	5. Chapter 5

Sometimes, it was possible to want something so much you just forgot what it was that you wanted. That was how he felt. He felt like he was wrapped up in the want and the need of what he was doing but he didn’t know what he was doing anymore. He was looking and looking and looking and he was so desperate to find it but he couldn’t - in any of his journals or his essays or his scholarly discussions - pin it quite down. Possibly because he told none of the recipients of his scholarly discussions what triggered his need to find  _ it _ . Possibly because his essays dealt heavily with theory and skirted around the edges of the magical so he could submit them to class/journals/scholars without being laughed at. Perhaps because his journal couldn’t whisper back to him and tell him that it understood. 

 

He didn’t call his parents. 

 

He also didn’t call Helen. 

 

He might have called Malory, but he felt overwhelmingly guilty about just up and leaving without a word or a note. He pretended he was the only Gansey alive in the world and it was just him unraveling the mysteries of the universe. He pretended he was a well versed academic who enjoyed spending all of his time laughing and studying and nothing else. He pretended he was at home and comfortable in every new city, town, country, state, bed. 

He was tired. So tired. 

 

He flitted from place to place, spending never more than a week in each place, feeling increasingly more desperate and anxious; like a million bees buzzing under his skin. 

 

His father caught up with him nearly four months after he had left Malory’s. 

 

He knocked on the hotel room door, and didn’t speak immediately after it’s opened. Instead he narrowed his eyes in scrutiny, heaved out a breath, and then stepped inside. 

 

“Your mother was frantic,” his father said. 

 

“My mother has never been frantic in her life.” 

 

“Don’t be rude,” his father said, though it hadn’t seemed like a rude thing to say, “we’ve had no word from you for four months.” 

 

“Three months. And four weeks.” 

 

“Don’t be rude,” his father repeated, this time it had seemed like a vaguely rude thing to say. “You’re lucky I had a few days off to come collect you, or I would have called the police to fetch you home.” 

 

When he received no answer, he spoke again. “We’ve had enough of you traipsing around unsupervised now. We keep hearing about your name popping up in academic articles and we look so very silly when we have no idea about them. We’ve had to keep practicing our unsurprised face.”

“I’m sorry.” 

 

“You ought to be,” his father said, “why haven’t you been calling?”

 

Because I can’t bear to speak to anyone who knows me right now. Because I can only talk about things I don’t care about with you. Because it felt better when I pretended I was the only one left. 

 

“I forgot my phone in England,” he said. 

 

“And forgot all of our numbers?” His father replied, eyebrows arched, “I highly doubt that, Richard.” He didn’t wait for another excuse, simply looked around the simple room and said, “Pack. Our flight back to DC leaves in an hour and a half.” 

 

-

 

It wasn’t the worst thing. Being back at the DC house. His father had barely talked the entire trip back, and he had been sent to his room to sleep when they got there because apparently he looked dead on his feet.

 

Helen came into his room after about an hour of him failing to sleep. She didn’t knock, just opened the door and came in to sit at the foot of his bed. 

 

“You’re not sleeping,” she said. 

 

He shook his head. 

 

“Why didn’t you call me?” She asked, “When you left England. Even that Malory fool didn’t have your new number.” 

 

“I forgot.” 

 

“For four months?” 

 

“Yes.” 

 

“Liar.” 

 

“Yes.” 

 

She sighed, lifted her legs up onto the bed and folded them under her self. 

 

“Mum and dad are looking at new boarding schools. Stricter ones.” 

 

“I’ll run away again.” 

 

“Dick,” she snapped, sighed, started again. “You’re getting too old for this,” she said, “you can’t keep running away from your imaginary problems. You’re letting us down. You’re letting me down. You’re letting yourself down.” 

 

“Helen,” he said, turned his face so his cheeks were smushed in against his pillow and his words came out sideways, “I’m getting so close. I can feel it. If I - if I stop looking I’ll die.” 

 

“Is that a threat?” 

 

He had to take a moment to parse this, and then he rolled over again so he could look at her. “No,” he said firmly, “just a fear.” 

 

“Not a serious one, though,” she said, “tell me it’s not a serious one.” 

 

It felt a lot like a command. 

 

“Not a serious one,” he agreed. 

 

She looked pleased. Nodded. “Ok,” she said, “listen. They’re angry about all of this. You’ve made them look a bit foolish and you know they don’t like that. They love you though, obviously, so they’ll be willing to overlook how dumb you’ve been if you can make it up to them.” 

 

“How?” 

 

“Stop gallivanting. You’ve wasted your last couple of years. Jumping from online schools to foreign schools, to what the hell ever. Your record is so jumpy it looks like you’re a kangaroo.” 

 

She paused here for him to laugh. He did. 

 

“They want to send you to a boarding school, but if you can find somewhere else good, and promise to stay still and stick it out for at least a year, Dicky, that might work. You’ll have to be very eloquent about it all though. You’ll probably have to go to lots of charity events with them too, make a lot of appearances at things. You’ve barely been home the last few years, people are probably beginning to think we’ve murdered you or something.” 

 

He laughed again for her and she smiled appreciatively at him. 

 

“It’s the summer,” she added, “in case you hadn’t noticed. You have a little bit of time to figure out what you’re going to do.” 

 

-

 

What followed was a lot of groveling. Or. Gansey sized groveling, which meant that he spend a lot of time giving his time to his parents, talking to their friends, making sure to stick to approved topics of conversations, laughing about that one time with the bees to make other people comfortable. He researched deep into each night, trying to find his line out. He chewed up his anxiety and spat it out as fear and called Malory about a lead. 

 

“Ley lines,” he said on the phone in greeting when Malory answered it. 

 

“Indeed,” Malory had said gravely, “always sneaking up on you when you least expect it.” 

 

“I’ve been going over our research,” he said, “and I think I was right.” 

 

“About which bit?” 

 

“The Virginia bit. The Henrietta bit. The whole final resting place bit.” 

 

“Please do tell,” Malory sounded like he was eating some sort of caramel gravel, so his words were all sticky, but he still sounded very interested. 

 

“I’ve visited the ther sites we circled,” he said, speaking loudly enough for Malory to hear him over his own crunching, but not loud enough for his voice to carry out into the hallway - lest a member of his family be listening in. “They don’t feel right.” 

 

“Have you visited this Henryville?” 

 

“Henrietta. No. But it feels right just thinking about it. And all the research points that way. There seems to be enormous power in the lines there. It’s lit up so bright, Malory, I would feel a fool if I ignored it all.” 

 

“Would that be the only reason you’d be a fool?” 

 

“No.” 

 

-

 

It took more Gansey groveling to get his parents to agree. A few weeks of it in fact. It culminated during a pasta dinner, his father on his third glass of wine. 

 

“Fine,” he said. “But there’s to be no more nonsense, understand? Aglionby Acadmy is a very upstanding school. They don’t take skipping to go hunting a dead king kindly, and they don’t pass you unless you’re worth passing.” 

 

“I know. I’ll work hard.” 

 

“Good,” his father said, smiled kindly at him, “if you don’t meet their requirements, I’ll cut you out of the will.” 

 

“I understand. I’ll work hard.” 

 

“Good.” 

 


	6. Chapter 6

The dorms at Aglionby were fine. They were made and catered to rich boys living out of their parent’s purses and ambitions (like he ought to be), but. They were all so close together. Packed in like over cologned sardines. Two a room, walls think, voices louder. He didn’t think he could handle it being a 24/7 situation, especially on little sleep. 

 

It’s a wonder really, with how quietly pissed off his parents were at him, that they agreed to let him purchase the abandoned factory. His father had simply repeated his request that he keep his grades well up, his mother had remarked on how he couldn’t have anyone  _ important _ visit him here unless he got it well cleaned up, and Helen mucked up his hair and told him to remember to keep the windows shut to keep bees out. 

 

He wasn’t sure whether it was because his parents thought him mature enough to be left alone so quickly, or if it was the pissed off thing, but he was reasonably sure he was glad they had left already and he could begin his getting to know Henrietta. He had purchased maps, and maps, and maps, and outlines of Henrietta history, and there looked to be so much of promise already. He felt like he was in the right place. 

 

First though. He had to actually sort himself out in his new place. The abandoned factory. The very abandoned factory. 

 

He started out at the local hardware store, because he wasn’t entirely sure where to start but he knew he needed some mold cleaner, wall filler, crc, and maybe a little advice. Not that he planned on doing it all himself, of course. He would hire a plumber and an electrician, but he wanted to get a lay of the land before that.

 

He had been staring at the shelf holding various mold sprays and pastes and rubs and whatever for a good five minutes when it happened. 

 

“Are you alright?” The lady, he had assumed was a shop assistant asked. 

 

“Oh,” he said, carefully slotting on his top notch school boy voice, “yes, ma’am.” 

 

He continued to stare at the sprays, willed his eyeballs to suck their tears back in before they overflowed his lids and proved that he was, in fact, not alright, after all. It wasn’t as if he could explain to anyone why his was crying in the mold section. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t. He was just experiencing a little bit of dampness in his eyes because of various circumstances, possibly the dust in his new abode.  

 

“It’s just,” the lady says kindly, “you’ve been looking at that bottle for a good long time. Do you need some help deciding? I tend to use this brand for all mold, myself.” 

 

She plucked a bottle from the shelf, and showed it to him. 

 

He looked at the bottle, and then at the lady, realising that she was not in fact dressed in the red and navy uniform of this shop. 

 

“Thank you,” he said as firmly as he could manage, put on a small smile for her, and took the bottle. 

 

“Are you working on a project?” She asked, nodding at his trolley beside him - an unnecessarily huge amount of...shit piled in it. 

 

“Yes,” he said, “I - uh. I’m renovating.” 

 

“How exciting,” the lady said, “with your parents?” 

 

His parents were probably very right t have wanted to keep him close by at their hand picked boarding schools all these years. If he had done as they wanted he would probably be a lot more put together and he certainly wouldn’t have let his unspilled tears actually spill out onto his cheeks. 

 

“No, ma’am,” he said, “just me.” 

 

“Oh,” she said, then, in a very strange twist of fate, “well. If you don’t mind, can my son help out?” 

 

“Excuse me?” he asked. 

 

“My son,” she repeated, her smile a very bright and pleasant thing, “I need him out of the house for the afternoon. He’s very good at cleaning and renovating, and you look and sound like you need a hand and some company.” 

 

“Oh,” he said. This was such a strange and sudden request, he wasn’t even sure how he would begin to turn it down. “Certainly.” 

 

“My name is Aurora,” the lady said, “I live just out of town. My middle son, Ronan -” she yelled the Ronan bit, calling her son, “goes to Aglionby. You look like maybe you go there too?” 

 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, “I just enrolled. I start with the coming term.” 

 

There was a boy about his age walking down the aisle. Hands shoved in tight jean pocket, curls everywhere, confused expression on his face. 

 

“Ronan,” Aurora said, reaching out to the boy, “come meet -” 

 

“Oh - Richard G- Richard. Gansey. Call me Gansey.” 

 

“Gansey,” Ronan said, eyebrows raised. “Hi?” 

 

“Gansey is going to Aglionby, “Aurora told her son, and I’ve just volountered you to help him out this afternoon.” 

 

Ronan looked horrified.

 

“You don’t have to -” 

 

“I think it’ll be good for you,” Aurora interrupted, with a quick smile back at him as she talked to her son, “and I don’t think Gansey here knows how to use mold spray.” 

 

“Mom,” Ronan grumbled, hands somehow going even deeper in his pockets, “this is fucking weird.” 

 

“Yeah,” his mother agreed, “but I have a good feeling about it.” 

 

-

 

He took Ronan back to the factory. Monmouth. The factory was called Monmouth - according to the peeling letters high up on the outer facing wall. 

 

“Um,” he said as he let them both in and put the supplies down on the floor. Ronan was carrying a couple of the bags for him too, and he dropped them next to the others. “This is it.” 

 

“This is a dump,” Ronan snorted. He didn’t say it meanly like Helen had. “Rad, man.” 

 

“You think?” 

 

“Fuck yeah,” Ronan snorted, spinning on his heel to take it all in. “But like, there’s so much junk in here. You’re gonna need to chuck half this shit out of here before you can even start cleaning.” 

 

“Oh,” he looked around at the stacks of shit and the filing desks and the boxes of odd bits and pieces. “You’re right.” 

 

“Yeah I am,” Ronan said, then, “hey. It’s all junk right?” 

 

“Yeah.” 

 

“And that window there - it looks like it opens all the way. Does it?” 

 

“Um,” he stepped away towards the window Ronan was pointing at, and heaved at the rusted window until it creaked open. All the way. “Yes.” 

 

“We should throw this shit,” Ronan said. “Out the window. That’d be fun. And no one’ll be down there, yeah?” 

 

“We could,” he fiddled with the latch, “and then we could burn it.” 

 

Ronan looked at him as if he had turned up at a party with a stack of pizzas and a keg. 

 

“Fuck yeah,” he said. 


	7. Chapter 7

It was odd. It really was. Because, see, he had been surrounded by people his age his entire life - almost all of them well educated and opinionated and of the  _ right kind _ according to his parents. And. All his life he had paid his dues to his parents’ politics and power by smiling and befriending people at his school and at his parents’ parties, and etc, etc, etc. They weren’t the kind of friend that he would miss whenever he left town, they never were.They were the type who he could walk into a group of and blend in and smile and be ‘friends’ with and then walk right out, and yet, next time he saw them, still be greeted loudly and happily because that was their role. 

 

Ronan was. Ronan was something different. Yes, he was very well educated, and yes, he had a lot of opinions, and yes, his family did have a lot of money but they were certainly not what his family would call the right kind. The money was too new, for one thing, the family was too odd for another, Ronan was too wild for the most. 

 

Ronan was wild and reckless and exciting. It felt like a moth to a flame, except, the closer he got to Ronan, the less like a moth he felt -covered in dust from his books, dull, uninspired - and more like a twin flame. Like if they got close enough, they’d turn into a bonfire. 

 

He was burning. 

 

-

 

The day he met Ronan’s father felt as if it were the first day he had gone to the Barns. It wasn’t the first day, he had been so often now that it felt like Aurora expected him every night for dinner. There was always a place set for him, a smile beamed at him, Ronan’s younger brother Matthew grabbing his hand. 

 

Today, it was different. Which isn’t to say that there were no smiles or hand grabbing, or a place at the table, it was just. 

 

It was Ronan - still very much a flame, but, somehow dimmed in the presence of his father whose side he stuck to. If any two people together were to be a bonfire, it would be Ronan and his father. 

 

It was Matthew, always a chatterbox, overwhelming the entire room with his need to tell his father everything that had happened while he had been gone. 

 

It was Declan - Ronan and Matthew’s oldest brother - turning stiff and upset, only accepting a shoulder pat from his father. 

 

It was Aurora who, like Ronan, seemed oddly diminished in the presence of her husband, yet also, shining brighter than ever. 

 

It was Niall turning to him and smiling in a way that looked like Ronan times twenty, and holding his arms out for a hug while booming something about how he had been thinking they needed another son. 

 

It was a whole new Barns, a whole new Lynch family. He had a space in each one it turned out. 

 

-

 

“Gans,” Ronan whispered, much later that night when they had all gone to bed. 

 

Niall had done the rounds, reading bedtime stories to Matthew, and then regaling him and Ronan with fantastic and unbelievable tales of what he’d been up to while they drank hot chocolate. 

 

“Mm?” He asked, rolling onto his side to face Ronan. Ronan’s head was under the duvet. 

 

“You like it here, yeah?” 

 

“Of course I do.” 

 

“Even though my dad is -” Ronan paused here, as if he didn’t like what he was saying. “We don’t usually have people around here,” he said, “Declan kept saying that you wouldn’t like dad or that dad wouldn’t like you or something.” 

 

“I like your dad. And,” he tugged the blanket down from Ronan’s face, “I’m extremely honoured that you let me come here and join in on family activities.” 

 

“God,” Ronan snorted, “you sound like my latin teacher. Old fart.” 

 

“Oi!” 

 

Ronan jabbed him in the ribs, and they tussled for a moment under the blankets before Ronan managed to pin him down, holding him still with the points of his elbows. They might both be into sports, but Ronan had the upper hand seeing as his main sport was sparring. 

 

“Our latin teacher,” I should have said, Ronan said, grinning down at him before releasing him from the pointy elbows of doom. “Class is going to be so much better with you there.” 

 

“It’ll be great.” 

 

“Just,” Ronan mumbled then, he looked like he was going to pull himself back under the duvet. Instead, he burrowed further down under it so their legs tangled. “Just promise you won’t leave me behind?” 

 

“What? Why would I do that?” he snorted, “Leave you behind for what?” 

 

“For people more… popular,” Ronan grunted, not at all amused, “I don’t really have friends. You ought to have figured that out by now.” 

 

“You have me. I’m not going to leave you behind.” 

 

-

 

He meant what he said then, and he meant it the next morning too when Ronan woke the both of them up by accidentally kneeing him in the crotch, and he meant it when they went to school and everyone there liked him, and he meant it forever, he decided. Ronan and his family might not have been the  _ right kind _ for the Gansey family, but they were the right kind for him. 

 

He meant it the very most the day he heard the news about Ronan’s father. The day Ronan stopped being  _ Ronan  _ and became a new thing. A still wild and bright and reckless thing but… near feral. He wasn’t a flame anymore, he was a wildfire burning alone through underbrush. He was a live coal on a newspaper. 

 

“I mean it,” he said to Ronan, one hand pressing his thumb too hard against Ronan’s cheekbone, the other carefully dabbing with toilet paper and the road rash bleeding on Ronan’s forehead, “I mean it, Lynch. Just stay here.” 

 

“You’ll get bored of me,” Ronan slurred, “you’re already bored of me.” 

 

“No,” he snapped, threw the bloody toilet paper away and reached for the salve for Ronan’s face. “Lynch. Ronan. I would no sooner get bored of you than Glendower, and you know that’s not happening, even though the both of you are frustrating and causing me to lose sleep.” 

 

“Bold claim,” Ronan got out through what sounded like either an aborted sob or a hiccup. “Gans,” he said, and now it was definitely an actual sob, “you’re my home.” 

 

Now that was a bold claim. The Barns were still standing, even if the Lynch parents were not. His home was still there, just out of reach legally speaking. Matthew and Declan were still alive, still around, still wanting Ronan. Maybe Matthew more than Declan. 

 

“Ronan,” he said, leaned forward to press his forehead to Ronan’s - never mind the blood and salve - “you’re my home too.” 


	8. Chapter 8

It was funny, he thought, because he had been actively avoiding having to share a living place with anybody for the last few years, and now he was inviting people in, and enjoying it. Him, Ronan, Noah, all living at Monmouth together, and him not being the odd one out. Which wasn’t actually the enjoyable bit. It wasn’t the enjoyable bit because usually him being the odd one out was due to his insomnia, or his screaming nightmares, or his obsession with finding answers, and well. He wasn’t the odd one out because Ronan seemed to hate sleeping, and Noah laughed at the idea of going to bed before him, and Ronan’s nightmares were so much fresher and bloodier than his, and they all were focused and obsessed. 

 

Him on Glendower, and death, and Henrietta, and Ronan, and Noah. Ronan on destroying himself, and death, and Gansey, and Noah. Noah on terrible music, and Ronan, and Gansey. All of them obsessed with each other. All of them awake at some godawful time in the morning in a pile of the floor of Monmouth pretending like none of them had issues as they talked about shit and rubbish. 

 

At times, Ronan might seem like he was actively trying to…  off himself, to completely disengage from his brothers and the world, but. He knew better. He saw Ronan for all that he was, and could be, and had been. He saw him after he’d woken Ronan from a nightmare, and after he’d dragged him drunk up the stairs, and after Ronan had woken him from a nightmare. 

 

“Gans,” Ronan had been mumbling, his hand tight on his shoulder as he shook him awake, “you’re fine. The hornets are gone.” 

 

This was an odd thing to hear upon waking up. A very appreciated thing though. He blinked his eyes open, squinted through the gloom at Ronan. Cleared his throat. 

 

“I know,” he got out. 

 

Ronan rolled his eyes, then, pushed the duvet down and got in beside him. 

 

“What’re you doing?” 

 

“Go back to sleep,” Ronan said, “you’ve got tryouts in the morning.” 

 

“And I’ll sleep easier with you here, taking up all the space?” He was seeping this with as much sarcasm as he could having just woken up from a nightmare, but it seemed to glance entirely off of Ronan. 

 

“Everyone sleeps better when their backs aren’t ironing boards,” Ronan grunted, shoving at him until he was lying on his side, back to Ronan, “it’s all that hunching over your dumb cardboard city. I’ll rub the knots out for you.” 

 

“You should be sleeping too,” he protested, though, quite weakly because Ronan had started to rub his back, and it was maybe true that his back was quite sore and stiff. 

 

“I’ve slept already,” Ronan said. “Go to sleep, man, I got you.” 

 

-

 

He still had insomnia, his thoughts keeping him awake at all hours, but, his nightmares were fewer. They dropped by increments until he was making it full months at a time without tasting bee stings. Maybe this was just the result of having roommates. Maybe if he’d stuck it out longer than a week at the first boarding school he might have been entirely cured of nightmares. Maybe it was his own fault. 

 

Or maybe it was because he felt safe. Maybe it was because Ronan was his family now and he was Ronan’s family and Noah’s family, and they teased him and joked with him but never bit down on him hard enough to actually hurt. Maybe it was because it was a home, not a boarding school dorm, or a hotel room, or the far off bedroom of his childhood. 

 

Ronan’s nightmares, though. His seemed to get worse. They doubled, and quadrupled, and ganged up on him. They made him bitter and angrier, and loath to come to school. 

 

He did his best to calm Ronan, to soothe him, to get rid of the nightmares, but. It felt very much like little less than a miracle would actually help. 

 

And lo and behold? A miracle they got. 

 

-

 

It was a morning in which it was uncomfortably hot in the Pig (a car he had fallen in love with and bought in DC while his father attempted to teach him how to be a Gansey and love sensible things like cars and money instead of long gone history), the kind of heat which heralded a break down. He rather sympathised with his car, because Ronan was stretched out in the backseat being entirely incorrigible and snippy and he felt very much like he was also going to have a break down. 

 

“Ronan,” he said as he wrestled with the gear stick, tried his best to keep his voice on straight, “it’s just a coffee. Declan just wants to get a coffee with you and go over some things from the lawyer. It won’t be so bad.” 

 

“He wants to rub it in my face,” Ronan snarled, kicking the back of the passenger seat, “that he’s in charge. That I have nothing.” 

 

“Lynch,” he groaned, “Lynch - please -” the engine died before he could finish his sentence, possibly for the best because he didn’t know what came after the please. “Shit,” he added, did his best to pull the Pig further to the side of the road. 

 

“God,” Ronan said from the backseat, “good. You should leave me and the Pig here to die. Go to class.” 

 

“I’m going to look under the hood,” he said firmly, “you stay here.” 

 

The miracle was not the Pig breaking down (that happened with far too much frequency), nor was it Ronan’s awful mood (also something that happened too much), it wasn’t even with how much confusion he was staring down into the guts of his car with. 

 

It was the sound of bicycle wheels, the sight of dusty hair and an angular face he recognised vaguely. It was a heavily Henrietta voice asking if he needed help. He really did need help. 

 

This help came from a boy called Adam Parrish - someone he knew existed in and around Aglionby because of Adam’s outstanding grades, but knew no more of because of Adam’s lack of interest in talking to anyone. Adam showed him what was wrong, showed him how to fix it, begrudgingly accepted a lift to school. 

 

“Lynch,” he said to the foul mood in the back seat as he and Adam got into the front, “this is Adam Parrish. Adam, this is Ronan Lynch. He just saved our hide, Lynch, say hello.” 

 

Ronan pulled a face at Adam, Adam stared blankly back. 

 

“You didn’t tell me you were opening up space in your social calendar for new wankers,” Ronan said. 

 

Adam looked offended, but not surprised, and not quite hurt either. He smirked at Ronan, and turned away to look out the front window. 

 

“Don’t be a shit, Lynch,” he hissed, then to Adam, “ignore him. He gets feral like this sometimes.” 

 

Ronan mimicked him in the back seat, but Adam smiled at him - ignoring Ronan. 

 

“I’m not scared of any feral dog,” Adam said. 


	9. Chapter 9

It turned out to be true that Adam Parrish wasn’t scared of any feral dog. He took on Ronan’s behaviour with raised eyebrows and a bite back that was actually quite impressive. At first he’d been worried that either Ronan or Adam would scare the other off, or insist that he choose between them, but it became obvious reasonably quickly that even if  _ he _ didn’t really appreciate the fire and hammer of the majority of their conversations didn’t mean that the two of them disliked it. 

 

It turned out that having Adam join in on their friendship, on their afternoons at Monmouth, at their research and search for Glendower was actually one of the best things he could have asked for. Adam was clever, far too clever, and determined to get to the bottom of things. Once he’d set his mind to it, he would do it. Furthermore, he got on well with Noah, and Noah got along well with him, and that was good. 

 

Best still, was that even though Ronan had balked at the entry of a fourth at first, he had slowly become obviously happier. Still brittle, bite and bark equal, but so much more willing to smile and laugh. Even if it wasn’t quite the same as it had been, it was nice. It gave him hope for a Ronan of the future who didn’t drive his life like he planned to crash it. Adam was good for him, was good for their friendships because he was a balancing act in the middle - a picture of sensibility impossibly mixed with the kind of recklessness that drove Ronan, and a quiet, sharp sense of humour that always took them by surprise. 

 

So. Adam wasn’t scared by any feral dog. That much was true. He didn’t seem to be scared of anything, really, which was why it shocked him to the very core the day he first saw Adam frightened. 

 

-

 

He had been going to pick Adam up, and sure, maybe he was a little early, but it shouldn’t have been a problem. Adam never talked about his parents and he got the distinct feeling that Adam didn’t get along with them very well, but, well, he was always good with parents. His parents had always told him he charmed parents better than he charmed their children. He wasn’t sure if that had been praise or not. 

 

So. It had been an early school morning, he had left Ronan and Noah at home because Ronan said he required ten minutes more beauty sleep and he couldn’t find Noah. He had followed Adam’s instructions to where to find his house, gotten a little lost, turned the Pig around in a scruffy driveway, almost ran over a row of post boxes in doing so. He was very glad he was alone in the car, because this was the moment he realised that he knew perfectly well what this unassuming driveway was, and where it lead to, and that in fact, it lead to the trailer park that Adam must live in. He wondered if Ronan already knew this, seeing as he’d grown up in Henrietta. He was probably the last to piece it together. 

 

So if his first mistake had been turning up early, his second, and larger, mistake was to then drive down the driveway, nice and slow so he could read the peeling numbers on the fronts of ramshackle trailer houses, slowly so as not to run over the dog that ran barking at his tires, or the children who stared at his (possibly too brightly) orange car, and pull up outside of Adam’s. He double checked the number, berated himself for being shocked at how run down it looked, found himself thinking all too hard about the wear and tear and careful mending of all of Adam’s clothes. He rolled up his window to stop the barking dog from climbing in with him to bark at him more effectively, and then the yelling began. He ignored it for a moment, because it wasn’t his business, and then it got louder and he could pinpoint where the sound was coming from a little better, and then the door to Adam’s opened, and Adam all but tumbled out of it with a man heavy on his heels. 

 

He didn’t mean to stare, or to freeze, but it was a shock and a half to see Adam with his face screwed up like that, and even with that expression, he wasn’t expecting the man to then hit Adam around the side of the face.

 

Before he could even unbuckle his seatbelt to go and try to lend a hand, Adam was at the car, wrenching the door open and falling inside it. 

 

“Let’s go,” he said, voice taut, “you shouldn’t have come down here.” 

 

While Adam buckled up, he maneuvered them around, drove them back out into the main road, him avoiding the small children again, Adam avoiding his glances. 

 

“Are you ok?” he tried eventually once they were free of the place, and Adam snorted. 

 

“You shouldn’t come down the drive,” Adam said sharply, “it’s not good for either of us.” 

 

“You said to pick you up!” 

 

“At the letterbox!” Adam protested, “At the letterbox! Not right in front of my  _ parents _ , Gansey. God.” 

 

He didn’t really know how to process this. Well. he did. He understood not wanting to let his parents meet his friends, but. This felt very different. Obviously. He thought about the backhand Adam had just received, and winced. 

 

“Is your face ok?” 

 

Adam sighed, picked at a loose thread on his back bag between his legs, and shook his head, then nodded it quickly. “I’m fine,” he said, voice a lot softer, “I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it, ok?” 

 

It wasn’t ok. 

 

“Ok.” 

 

-

 

“Ronan,” he said, before they’d even closed the Pig door after dropping Adam off at work after school. “Ronan I need you to be serious for a moment.” 

 

Ronan had been in the process of stripping out of his uniform - never mind that they were in a car in public - he was down to his boxers and socks. 

 

“I’m always serious,” he said. 

 

“Shut the door, will you?” 

 

“My beauty deserves to be seen,” Ronan sniped, but pulled the door shut so they could pull out of the parking lot without losing some of Ronan’s clothes, or Ronan himself. “What am I being serious about? And do I need clothes for it?” 

 

“No,” he paused to check the intersection, “it’s about Adam.” 

 

“If it’s about how he’s almost definitely not human, yeah, I understand man. He’s gotta be like, half vampire or something to keep the hours he does.” 

 

“You stay up later than him most nights. But no. God. I said serious, Ronan.” 

 

“Fine,” Ronan grunted, “what?” 

 

“Did you know?” 

 

“Know what, Dick?” Ronan groaned, leaning down to peel his socks off (not appreciated), “if you want me to be serious about it, you gotta let me know what  _ it _ is.” 

 

“He’s talking about the fact that Adam’s parents are bastards,” Noah chipped in from the backseat. 

 

“Shit,” he almost crashes the car, “I forgot you were there Noah - you were so quiet.” 

 

“I was napping,” Noah said primly. 

 

“Adam’s parents are bastards,” Ronan repeated. 

 

“Well. His father - I - I picked him up before school today.” 

 

“And his father was a bastard about it?” 

 

“Ronan,” he paused again here because this wasn’t his secret, and also because, well, maybe Ronan wouldn’t think it was a big deal. He pulled into Monmouth and put the handbrake on. “He hit him, Ronan.” 

 

Ronan looked at him for a moment, as if he didn’t think he had heard right, and then he shook his head. “He hit him? Right in front of you?” 

 

“Yes right in front of- yes, so - you knew?” 

 

“Kinda,” Ronan hedged, folded his arms and stared down at his bare chest. “I - he keeps pretty quiet about his homelife, huh?” 

 

“We’ve gotta do something.” 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW. ronan's suicide attempt. It isn't explicity stated or described, but it is there and it happens loudly.

Doing something turned out to be a lot harder then he had thought. Because, the thing was, he had money, oodles of it, he had charm - it worked great on teachers, parents, people attracted to him -, he had resources, and he had the want to give it to Adam but. But Adam had this  _ thing _ where he only appreciated a thing if he had earned it for himself. No. That wasn’t quite true. Adam appreciated things. He appreciated the Pig, the BMW, the battered journal detailing the hunt for Glendower. He just didn’t appreciate things being handed to him, like  a coke he hadn’t paid for, or a packet of chips, or a smile that looked maybe a little bit condescending. He had had to learn very quickly in their friendship that Adam Parrish was so fiercely determined to be independent that he could catch on fire like a match at the mere idea of charity. 

 

So. He and Ronan did their best to figure Adam out - to figure out how to get him out, that is. Nothing worked. The only solace to be found was that, at the very least, Adam sent so much of his time with the three of them - him, Ronan, Noah - that his time at home with his parents was limited. That when things did go wrong, he didn’t try and hide it from them because they saw each other too often not to notice. That he let them help sometimes for things like plasters, or painkillers maybe. A couch to nap on in the middle of the day, a shower between shifts, rides from work. It wasn’t enough, but it was all Adam would give them, so it had to be enough. 

 

This was a double edged sword - this not being able to help Adam thing. It cut Adam because, of course it cut Adam. It either cut him with shame or it cut him with his father’s fist, or it cut him with frustration, but it always cut him. It cut the rest of them with guilt for not being able to do anything real, with anger at Adam for not letting them do anything real, with frustration. 

 

It cut because if he couldn’t use his money for good in a situation like this where Adam deserved this good so much, then what good was he even? He made the foolish mistake of bringing up his conundrum one weekend while back at his parents’ in DC. It wasn’t a special occasion, their calendars just happened to line up, and his mother requested him home, so he went. 

 

-

 

“I was talking to Withfield last week,” his father said over the dinner table while he reached for a buttered roll. “He’s good friends with Childs. Your headmaster.” 

 

“Oh,” he attempted to look interested, rather than mildly worried, “yes, I remember you saying you went to university with a friend of Childs.” 

  
  


“Right,” his father said, “he was saying Childs is very taken with you. Quite the golden child he said. A real Gansey man, he said.” 

 

“How flattering,” his mother said. He smiled at her. 

 

“Very flattering,” his father added, “he said your entourage of peers is quite impressive as well. Everyone wants to be friends with Richard, he said.” 

 

“I’m not sure I would say everyone,” he said to the pees on his plate that he was pushing around with his fork, “but I do my best to get along with as many people as possible.” 

 

“We’re very proud of you, Dicky,” his mother said. 

 

“Thanks, mum.” 

 

“Helen tells us you have your little core group too, though, isn’t that right?” his father asked, hopping back onto his conversation topic. 

 

“I do.” 

 

“That Lynch boy, yes? The one whose parents died recently. Rich, but still a bit of a charity case, isn’t he?” 

 

“Ronan Lynch. He’s a good friend. Not a charity case. He’s just been through… a lot.” 

 

“You’re very good to look after him like you do,” his mother assured him. “It’s good to build deep connections with people when you’re young.” 

 

“That’s true,” his father added, “he might be a little off his rocker right now, from the sounds of it, but he comes from a reasonably solid family, doesn’t he? And like I said. A rich one. He’ll be a good friend if you keep him into adulthood. He’ll owe you one. Or several.” 

 

“I”m not,” he had to focus on not letting his words turn snappish, “I’m not keeping him around as a favour, I enjoy his company. He pays rents at Monmouth too.” 

 

“Well,” his father said, offered up a not very contrite smile, and charged on, “and the other boy. Adrien, was it?” 

 

“Adam. Adam Parrish.” 

 

“Oh yes,” his mother said, she took a long sip of her iced water, “I remember Helen mentioning him. He’s the trailer trash child isn’t he?” 

 

“Mum!” 

 

“She’s just speaking the truth,” his father said, cutting through his outrage. “I suppose that one is the real charity case here, isn’t he?” 

 

“It’s not like that,” he insisted, and then changed his mind, and then changed it again. “It isn’t charity,” he said, because Adam hated being charity, “it’s friendship. But.” 

 

“But?” his father prompted. 

 

“But,” he continued, “I do have a … I want to help him with an issue, and I’m not sure how to go about it.” 

 

“Well,” his mother said, “we are very good with issues. Do tell us.” 

 

“Right,” he said, put his fork down so he’d stop chasing the pees around his plate, “well. I’m sure you’ve gathered from Helen that Adam’s family isn’t very well off.” He paused here to watch his parents nod and, “and therefore Adam himself is not very well off.” He paused here again. His parents nodded again. He continued. “While that is an… issue, it’s not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that Adam’s father is… is - hits Adam. A lot. The issue is that I want to help Adam get out of his parents’ house and somewhere safe, and I don’t know how to do that.” 

 

“Lend him some cash,” his mother suggested, “a grand, maybe. That ought to be enough for him to get out, at least.” 

 

“He won’t -” 

 

“Report his father to the police,” his father said, “you don’t really need evidence, you just need to ask our lawyer to stand in and argue the case for you. Money speaks, you know.” 

 

“Adam wouldn’t -” 

 

“Tell him to man up,” his mother suggested cheerfully, “and either take the money you’re so graciously offering or to stop coming to you crying about his father.” 

 

“Adam doesn’t come crying to me!” he burst out, hands flat on the table. Pees were escaping over the tablecloth. He hadn’t realised he was slamming his hands down until he had done so. He stood up, scraping his chair back loudly. 

 

“Adam doesn’t cry, or beg,” he said stiffly, “he’s very proud and capable and I couldn’t offend him by taking over his life like that. If you would excuse me,” he added, “I think I’ll got to my room. I’m sorry for my outburst.” 

 

They let him go. 

 

-

 

It was a relief to be home at Monmouth, not just because of his not quite altercation with his parents, but because DC suffocated him, and made him feel like he was walking in the wrong way to his future, and made him worry about Ronan. Made him worry about Ronan because, yeah, having Adam around helped a lot. It cheered Ronan up a lot, it gave him more to do, but. He wasn’t  _ ok _ . That was the thing. 

 

So, it was a relief to be home at Monmouth and it also wasn’t because at home was Ronan being not  _ ok _ and Adam being  _ not ok _ and Noah just shrugging when asked how he was and. 

 

There wasn’t anything he felt he could do about it. 

 

He had all this money, and all this privilege, all this background holding him up and turning him to Aglionby’s golden child. With him being safely ensconced in a sensible school, he was back to being a Gansey trophy. He was so successful and bright and shiny futured to everyone around him except for him because. What was the point in all of that if his best friends  _ were not ok _ . 

 

Sure, they were ok sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes. They all laughed together, and had fun together, and searched for Glendower together, but. More and more recently he was noticing Ronan not sleeping, Ronan with bags under his eyes and… blood… on his hands. Adam was always tired, from the moment they met and every moment after. The bruises were constant. Maybe not always on his face or in view for the public, but he always knew when Adam was hurt. 

 

Something needed to change. He needed something to change. He had begun thinking very seriously about what would happen when they found Glendower (not if, when, it had to be when). He had always thought he would ask Glendower why he had saved his life, but now? Now he wanted to ask for Adam to be free, free and happy. For Ronan to be happy, happy and burning. He would hand over all of his wealth for these two wishes to be granted. 

 

Something needed to change. Something was going to change. He could feel it, like he could feel when Adam was hurt, or when Ronan hadn’t slept, or when Noah was uncomfortable. Like he could feel the bees in his dreams. Something was going to change, it was going to change, it was going to change. 

 

-

 

For one long, horrible night, he thought that the thing that was going to change was going to be the worst possible thing to happen. It wasn’t, but it still happened. 

 

-

 

He woke up, confused at first because he wasn’t sure why. He had slept well that night, which was nice, and he ought to have slept the whole night through. It took him much longer than it should have to notice Noah standing by his elbow, gleaming in the bright moonlight streaming in. 

 

“Gansey,” he said, and his voice was terrible. “Gansey. Ronan’s gone.” 

 

Sometimes Ronan went on the roof at night to stare at the stars, sometimes he drove his BMW around Henrietta until he ran out of gas, sometimes he drove to Singer’s Falls and pretended like he was allowed back on his property. It could have been one of those nights. It wasn’t. 

 

“What?” he mumbled up at Noah, mouth dry as cotton. 

 

“He’s gone out,” Noah said, and his voice just continued to worsen, “he’s gone and you have to hurry.” 

 

He put his glasses on because Noah looked barely solid without them. He continued to look barely solid with them, but that was probably due to the adrenaline and fear coursing through him. 

 

“Why’s he gone out?” he asked. 

 

“He’s had a bad night,” Noah whispered. 

 

(They had talked about bad nights before. Not quite with, sort of around Ronan. Sometimes Ronan would have thin slices drawn out on his arms or his hands. Freshly scabbed scratches. It was difficult to talk to Ronan about these things. Difficult to know how to get through, because. Ronan could be as open and as heartfelt and as emotionally needy as a burning ember, and he could also be as forthcoming as a burnt brick. Ronan had not wanted to talk about the thin lines on his body. He had said ‘bad night’ like it had been answer enough, and he had slammed his bedroom door. Noah had smiled carefully, softly, sadly at him as they stood in the wake of slammed doorness, and had said they would have to keep an eye on the nights, then.)

 

“Oh fuck,” he mumbled, grabbing first at his phone to check the time, and then catapulting himself out of bed. 

 

He didn’t really get dressed, he put on a jacket and his shoes and left the building with Noah on his heels. 

 

“Where should we go,” he mumbled, brain whirring, trying to think of all the spots Ronan liked to hide. 

 

“The church,” Noah suggested, then, “or the park. Or the bridge.” 

 

His stomach ached at the suggestions. 

 

“I’ll call Adam,” he said, fixing his voice to sensible rather than terrified, “and he can start looking from the bridge back towards us. We’ll start at the park. Meet at the church.” 

 

“Ok,” Noah said. 

 

He called Adam. It was always a risk calling Adam at home, and he hated doing it, and he even hated it right now when he felt it was a necessity. He held his breath and prayed even though he wasn’t sure how to pray, and after two and a half rings the call was answered. He didn’t release his breath until Adam’s carefully quiet voice crept through to him. 

 

“Gansey?” he asked, voice taut. 

 

“Adam,” he breathed, didn’t wait for Adam to ask what was going on. “Ronan’s gone - we - I’m - we’re worried. He’s not doing great. Can you look for him? By the bridge you guys do jumps from.” 

 

“Oh,” Adam said. 

 

“If you start there, and then make your way into town, we could meet at the church?” Gansey continued. 

 

“I -” Adam sounded like he was checking furtively that he was alone. “I’ll do my best,” he said, “if I’m not with you within the hour, assume I was caught, and don’t call here again. Ok?” 

 

He hated this. 

 

“Ok,” he said, “thank you.” 

 

Adam hung up. 

 

Noah had been walking faster than him, was already a full block away. When he caught up, at the chain link fence to the park, Noah had stopped walking, was standing still like a pillar. 

 

“Oh,” he said, “oh Ronan. Oh Gansey.” 

 

It was somehow worse than everything his anxiety ridden mind had managed to produce. He called an ambulance, Declan, and Childs (in that order), and all but plastered himself to as much of Ronan’s side as he could while he waited for the ambulance, then, while in the ambulance. 

 

Noah didn’t come with. He said he couldn’t. That was ok. He sat in the waiting room alone until Declan joined him. There was no word from Adam. 

 

Something needed to change. Everything needed to change. 

 


	11. Chapter 11

He was exhausted. Fatigued. Barely functioning. He shouldn’t complain, though. Out of all of his friends he had it the best right now. 

Ronan. Bandaged and bruised and broken, currently asleep in his bedroom after wearing himself out screaming at Declan. 

Adam. Bruised and battered. He’d dropped by Monmouth very, very briefly on his way to work to check in on him and Ronan and Noah, and to apologise for not making it out the night of the event. The reason way was obvious on his face. 

Noah. Closed off and chilled to the bone with what he’d seen. He was surprisingly delicate sometimes, and he’d heard Noah crying in his bedroom when he’d returned from the hospital, though he had stayed quiet when he’d knocked. 

 

He didn’t know what to do. Part of him suggested he ought to call his parents for help, or comfort, or something, but. A bigger part of him suggested he might just feel worse if he did. 

 

He sat by Ronan’s bed, butt on the chilly floor, head leaning against the mattress by Ronan’s pillow. He couldn’t really do anything, but he could sit here. He could listen to Ronan breathing. He could make sure this sort of thing never, ever happened again. He wouldn’t let Ronan throw his life away. 

 

-

 

Ronan recovered seemingly quicker than he did. While he was still nervous at the thought of Ronan leaving the house, of any injury on Ronan’s body, Ronan was out and on fire. Not the kind fire he had once been on, not even the painful fire he’d been after his father’s death. This was something paler, yet hotter. 

 

“Where are you going?” He asked, ten past nine on a school night, when Ronan stalked past him on the way to the door, leather jacket on and boots unlaced. 

 

“Out,” Ronan said shortly as he reached the door. He would, no doubt, have walked through it without another word, and into the night if there had been no more questions. 

 

“Where?” 

 

“There’s a race,” Ronan said brusquely. 

 

This was a new thing that Ronan did. A new thing to be disapproved of. It was one thing to sometimes drive a little recklessly, a little fast. Another thing to seek it on, to seek out others who didn’t give a damn about their lives or anyone else's. 

 

“Lynch,” he said, then didn’t know how to follow up on it. Ronan looked pissed off at the hold up. 

 

“I’m off,” he said, throwing the words contemptuously and he swung the door open.

 

“Ronan. I miss you.” It felt like a cheap shot. Like he was just throwing things out into the air in an attempt to get him to stay. But. It was the truth, and it hurt to say, and it was hard to say, and now it was out he hoped Ronan wouldn’t laugh at him. 

 

Ronan did not laugh at him. He leaned against the doorframe, facing away, and shook his head. 

 

“I’ve not gone anywhere yet,” he said. 

 

“No. But you almost did. You almost - you almost left me behind for good, Ronan. Please. God.  _ Jesus _ , please don’t leave me behind.” 

 

Ronan turned now, his face all in shadow, his face pulled into an expression that was hard to recognise. 

 

“Gans,” he said, “I’m never gonna leave you behind.” 

 

It was a lie. “You tried to,” he bit out, only biting because he couldn’t make it softer without breaking something in his throat. “And I’m scared you will. On purpose or by mistake. I’m scared you will.” 

 

Ronan looked like he’d like nothing better right now than to pretend he was deaf, to pretend he had already left. Then he closed the door again, locked it for the night, and crossed the darkened floor to drop himself down onto the bed next to him. 

 

“Gans,” he said again, voice raw, raw and bleeding, “you’re my  _ home _ . I’m not leaving you.” 

 

“Well,” he had to clear his throat, it felt like someone was building a barricade in it. “Act like it then.” 

 

Ronan looked a little surprised, but then he grinned a little. Leaned in against his side, wrapped his arms around his waist, leaned his head on his shoulder. 

 

It was his turn to be surprised now. He knew Ronan was a touchy person, someone who communicated through touch, who expressed affection through touch. Someone who had barely even brushed shoulders with him since that night. For weeks leading up to that night. It felt a little bit like how he imagined it ought to feel when you go home. He wrapped his arms around Ronan as well and tugged him as close as he dared. 

 

“It wasn’t like that, Gans,” Ronan was whispering against his neck. “I promise. I wouldn’t ever try and leave you on purpose.” 

 

This was a whole different kettle of fish. Something he didn’t feel fully equipped to deal with right now. He shut his eyes tight and leaned his face against the stubble of Ronan’s head. 

 

“You leave almost every night,” he pointed out, voice rough, “you leave and… and drink. And drive… and fuck about with that douche bag Kavinsky. And I -” 

 

“You worry,” Ronan finished. “I know.” 

 

“I just want you to be safe.” 

 

“I know,” Ronan repeated. He made a noise awfully like that of a cat trying to get a bone dislodged from its throat, then spoke again. “But this. This not being safe thing. It’s what’s keeping me safe from me, right now, Gansey.” 

 

He didn’t understand. “I don’t understand.” 

 

“I know,” Ronan choked this out on a half laugh this time, and suddenly he could feel a dampness on his shoulders, as if the dam of Ronan’s emotions had overflowed with his words. “I know you don’t understand,” he said, “Fuck, I don’t understand. But I need this. I need to go out and fuck shit up or else I’m gonna stay in and fuck myself up by mistake. I need it.” 

 

He had this horrible urge to ask why he wasn’t enough. To repeat that he didn’t understand. But he understood enough to know it wasn’t really about him at all. To know that it wasn’t that he wasn’t enough, he just wasn’t  _ it _ . He knew the feeling of needing to get out, to leave, to escape so that everything inside you didn’t bubble over and curdle up and kill you slowly while you lay in your room. He couldn’t begrudge Ronan for that. He could, however, begrudge Ronan for endangering his life and terrifying him everytime he went out. 

 

“Stay tonight?” he tried, “Please. You went on last night. You’ve not slept. Don’t go out tonight.” 

 

“Gansey,” Ronan said. 

 

“Please,” he repeated. “Stay with me.” 

 

Ronan didn’t reply, but he didn’t make to move either. Instead, he relaxed a little more against his side, let out a long, low exhale. 

 

“Thank you,” he said when Ronan still didn’t speak. 

 

-

 

It took a long time, or maybe not that long a time, depending on how you felt about the situation. But. He felt like they were back on track. Back to being alive and ok with being alive and back to looking for Glendower and clues without having to spend every single second thinking about Ronan covered in blood. 

 

They were finding things, exciting things,  _ clues _ . It felt right. It felt proper. It was him and Ronan and Adam and Noah on a mission. It was the four of them trekking around Henrietta together, learning together, laughing together. It was Ronan and Noah racing each other around fields because Ronan was the only one who could make Adam forget he was a solemn being for long enough to act like a child, and it was him and Noah making stupid puns at each other, and it was things being  _ ok _ . 

 

Things were ok. They weren’t great, obviously. Adam was still stuck with his abusive parents and his self deprecation, Ronan was still leaving to go racing every so often, still having nightmares, still occasionally turning up with thin cuts up his arms. Noah was still quiet and withdrawn, sometimes so still and quiet it was as if he wasn’t even in the house. But. They were all still capable of laughing, of cramming into Nino’s booths with him to eat greasy pizza and pore over journals and Glendower. 

 

Then came St Mark’s eve. Something he had read about it many times before, something he felt drawn to, something he felt would be a good thing to do here. In Henrietta. Where he felt closest to figuring out who he was and where he belonged. 

 

Then came hearing nothing all night. Bug bites and chilly air. Then came the recording, and his voice, and the realisation of what his voice on St Mark’s really meant. 

 

This was why he was here? Here in Henrietta, here searching for the meaning of his life. Here to listen to himself say his name during the procession of the dead. 

 

Things going ok wasn’t enough anymore. Things going ok meant that when he was the one to leave, Ronan wouldn’t have anything left over to go back to ok. He would abandon his friends in a place not easy to stand. 

 

He had a year, at most, a year to make things more than ok. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a tiny chapter!!!

Blue was a very strange lady. Girl? Person. She acted so… self possessed at times that it was difficult to believe she was their age. That, mixed with her terrifying family and her utter distaste for him, made her quite formidable. He didn’t quite get why she would voluntarily hang out with them. Well, no. He did get quite why. There were two reasons. 

 

Firstly, because she was obviously a very clever individual, very curious, very clever, and quite a lot magical. Secondly, because Adam had asked her out. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it was only because of Adam, really. Who could resist Adam Parrish’s charm? He was like he walking breathing personification of black and white faded photographs of soldiers from the past that women (his sister and her friends) swooned over. He was good looking in a way that was odd and mysterious, yet easy. He was tall, tanned, muscled. It was really just the icing on top that he was such a wonderful person as well. He just had to hope that she wasn’t looking for someone easy going, because, Adam was not easy going. 

 

So. Their group had become larger by one, yet, somehow, it felt like it had suddenly changed enormously. As if just Blue joining them on their trips and their discussions shifted the vibe from ‘friends on a treasure hunt’ to ‘serious business group’. He wasn’t sure how to explain it. Just that it felt right, and he couldn’t explain that to himself either. How did it feel right when it also felt so wrong? Blue didn’t like him, Ronan didn’t seem to like Blue, Adam was oddly skittish about the whole thing. Noah loved Blue already though, so there was that at least. 

 

It was just. Odd all over. 

 

Odd because with this suddenly  _ right _ feeling group they were making more progress than he had made in years. A forest appearing out of nowhere. Magical trees. Ideas and hope and  _ magic everywhere _ . All of this happening so quickly, and he understood now, why it was happening so quickly. It was happening so quickly because he had only this year left to find everything before he died. Just this year left to repay Glendower by bringing him back. That was what he was supposed to be doing, right? Just this year. 


	13. Chapter 13

Things moved too quickly, at first. Quick and terrifying. Cabeswater swallowed them up and spat them out. Noah was dead and had been dead and was always dead and there was nothing to be done about that. 

 

Ronan was burying himself. Not going to classes. Drinking. Grieving for Noah even though nothing had changed except their knowledge of his deadness. He was going to be kicked out of Aglionby. He couldn’t let that happen to Ronan, even if Ronan didn’t give a shit about it. 

 

He just wanted things to be ok. 

 

He just wanted - 

 

He just wanted his Latin teacher to not have attempted to murder him on the side of a road on the way home. He felt like he’d been stretched thin over his trip home - what with his parents, and the polite arguments, and Ronan - and having a  _ gun _ pointed at him? Felt very much like he was just disintegrating. Nothing made sense. 

 

Adam had put too much of himself into their search, had stepped just a little too far over his father’s rage, had found himself homeless and half deaf and. Things were awful. They had fought. He and Adam. A terrible fight. A fight where he felt he didn’t even know Adam, a fight where he felt like Adam hated him, and hated him, and all he could do was pull back and let Adam pick at his own scabs and let Ronan step in to help. The only good thing that had come out of this was that Adam was away from his parents and that Ronan was studying, but neither of them agreed with him that these were good things. 

 

Then. It was so stupid. He had always feared that Ronan would break his trust this way. Would steal the Pig. He knew it was just a  _ thing _ , but it was a thing that he felt he had put so much of his  _ Ganseyness _ into that it wasn’t really a thing anymore. It was him in metal. Obsolescent, too bright, trying too hard to get through each day/trip/moment. Breaks down often. 

 

Ronan didn’t steal the Pig. Adam stole the Pig. Adam snuck past him in the middle of the night and took the Pig and went to Cabeswater to strike a deal without him. Without the rest of them. 

 

This was the only thing he had going on in his life and Adam was doing it without him. 

 

It didn’t end well. Or. It did, but not in the way he would have ever wanted it. 

 

Adam bound to a force they didn’t understand. A man (a very bad awful murdery man) dead and trampled. Cabeswater awake and pulsing and dangerous. 

 

-

 

They reburied Noah in the graveyard on the Ley line, to strengthen him. It didn’t make his being dead better, it didn’t make anyone feel better about it, but it was a step to doing something right for him. 

 

Then Ronan decided to admit that he was more magical than any of them had ever guessed. 

 

Things were starting. Had started. Were burning down a highway. And yet. 

 

He didn’t know who he was anymore, or really, who his friends were. Ronan had kept such a large piece of himself so secret. Adam had gone behind all of their backs. Noah was  _ dead _ . Blue was a force to be reckoned with. 

 

He didn’t know where he belonged among them now. They had proven they didn’t need him to wake the line, to find clues, to get along. 

 

Obsolescent. 


	14. Chapter 14

The problem with being obsolescent, alongside the pain, was the knowledge that there was only so much he could do. Soon enough shops would stop stocking his replacement parts, no one would remember how to fix him, he’d rust in a back shed to be found decades later and thrown out in a huge clean up. Maybe this was dramatic, but, he thought he ought to be allowed to be dramatic. He was going to die, after all. He was going to die, and he couldn’t tell anyone, and he couldn’t explain to them why he was going to keep going if it meant he was going to die. If he deserved anything at all, he deserved the right to be dramatic in his own head. 

 

Something he didn’t think he deserved though? The pure joy of watching a  _ dream thing _ fly across the sky. Something Ronan had pulled right out of his dreams, something that was powered only by magic and by Ronan. Getting to watch his friends enjoy the magic he had been so desperately seeking for years now. It wasn’t right. He knew, now more than ever, that they all had their own relationship to the supernatural, to magic, that they were all connected to it and experienced it in different ways, and he felt… he felt as if by bringing them along on his own trip he was somehow tarnishing what magic was for them. It could never be just reading the future, or pretty lights, or just a feeling. Now it would always be connected the blood in the dirt, and Noah’s bones, and soon? His own death. It wasn’t fair of him to put them all in this pit with him, and yet? He couldn’t seem to help himself. He needed them, wanted them, and he was (hopeful) certain, that they needed or wanted him as well. 

 

-

 

It was after they had been to the Barns, after they had buried a dream Ronan had dreamed to destroy himself again, after Ronan had reminded all of them that even though he was magic and fire, he was soft and breakable as well. The tiny mouse on his cheek reminded them. The smell of the Lynch house reminded them. The look in Ronan’s eyes reminded him. Reminded him that, yes, he might be running out of time. Yes, he might not be necessary for much longer. Yes, Ronan wasn’t going to be brittle and painful and hurt forever. 

 

“It was strange,” he said, conversationally, about two in the morning when Ronan appeared from his room to go pee, and he was still sitting on the floor constructing the little cinema in town out of cardboard.

 

Ronan stubbed his toe on a stray chair in shock and swore loudly. 

 

“Being back at yours,” he clarified while Ronan hopped on one foot. 

 

“Fuck, man,” Ronan hissed, “warn a guy. I almost pissed myself.” 

 

“Go pee.” 

 

Ronan went to go pee, slamming doors on the way. When he came back out though, he still slammed the bathroom door, but he also made his way silently over to the cardboard town creation site, and settled down next to him, close enough that their knees jostled. 

 

“I’m glad you were there,” Ronan said after he had helped assist glue the roof on. “Going without you would have felt… bad.” 

 

“Will you go back?” He asked, wiped glue residue off of his fingers onto Ronan’s pajama pants, “When you can. Will you go live there again?” 

 

“I mean,” Ronan shrugged, “that’s the plan. It’s my home.” 

 

“What’s Monmouth?” 

 

Ronan looked pained. Also maybe a little pissed off. 

 

“I can have one than one home,” he said, “you don’t need me to spell this shit out for you.” 

 

“Spell it out anyway.” 

 

“Fuck,” Ronan swiped at his forehead like he used to do when there were curls there to brush back dramatically. He dropped his hand from his lack of hair to his lap, and then reached out almost close enough to touch. “I’ve told you before.” 

 

He wanted Ronan to just reach out closer. He didn’t want to seem needy. He knew he was needy. He shuffled himself across the floor, despite the fact that they were already sitting knee to knee. His shorts caught on a loose splinter, but he didn’t stop until his thigh was flush to Ronan’s and Ronan had caved and wrapped his arm around his waist. 

 

“Please,” he said, because, it was two in the morning, and he was too tired, and just the other day he had had to fight an embodiment of Ronan’s self hatred, and they had had to bury it, and maybe he felt a little fragile and a little too reminded of his own impending mortality. 

 

“Gansey,” Ronan said, “don’t be such a fucking dweeb. Yeah. You’re still my home. Yeah. Monmouth is my home. Yeah. The Barns in my home.” 

 

He breathed in deeply against Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan’s scent had changed dramatically over the last few years, but it was still so  _ Ronan _ . Still comfortingly familiar. 

 

“That’s never gonna change,” Ronan said, “I promised, didn’t I?” 

 

“I don’t know what to do now.”

 

Ronan snorted, maybe because it was an absurd thing to hear at two in the morning. Maybe because it didn’t seem to fit the conversation at all. 

 

“Go to bed, dick,” Ronan said, softer than he maybe deserved, “you need to rest even if you don’t sleep.” 

 

“Will you dream tonight?” 

 

“I always dream,” Ronan sighed, “but no. I won’t bring back another shit hole hell creature. So. Just sleep, ok?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm posting these in such small chunks!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! If you like my writing feel free to come yell at me on my Tumblr etoilegarden.tumblr.com


End file.
